NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core GPU Review

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Introduction and Specifications

Just in time for the holiday buying season, NVIDIA is at the ready with a brand new graphics card. Sort of. Today, NVIDIA is announcing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. Some of you may be thinking, “Hey! GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards use the GF114 GPU which offers a maximum of 384 cores!” And you’d be right. This new GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores, however, isn’t built around the GF114 GPU. Rather, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores is outfitted with the same GF110 GPU powering the high-end GeForce GTX 570 and GTX 580, but with a couple of its SMs fused off.

There are some other factors that differentiate the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores from other GF110-based cards as well, but NVIDIA had a bin of the GPUs with 448 cores available and decided to put together a graphics card that would fill the gap between existing GeForce GTX 560 Ti and GeForce GTX 570. Instead of naming the card something like the GeForce GTX 565, however, NVIDIA chose the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores moniker because the card will be a limited edition. Once the bin of 448-core GF110 GPUs is gone, so will the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. NVIDIA is also only offering this card in certain key regions—it won’t be a worldwide release.

Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core Limited Edition

NVIDA GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores

Specifications & Features

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores has—you guessed it—448 CUDA cores arranged in 14 SMs, with 56 texture units and 40 ROPs. The reference specifications call for a 732MHz core clock with 1464MHz CUDA cores. 1.2GB of GDDR5 memory is linked to the GPU via a 320-bit bus and the memory is clocked at an effective 3800MHz data rate. The cards will require a pair of 6-pin PCI Express power leads and support up to 3-way SLI.

As is the case with most NVIDIA GPU releases, however, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores will be offered in overclocked editions by some of NVIDIA’s board partners. The Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core Limited Edition card you see pictured here is an overclocked variant.

Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core Limited Edition

The Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core Limited Edition strays from NVIDIA’s reference design in that is sports a custom, single-fan cooler and overclocked GPU. The GPU clock is increased to 765MHz with 1530MHz CUDA cores, but the memory clock remains unchanged from the 3800MHz (effective data rate) of the reference design.

As you can see in the pictures above, the card is two-slots wide and features dual DVI outputs along with one HDMI output and one DisplayPort output.

Zotac includes a nice accessory bundle with the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core Limited Edition as well. Along with the card itself, we found a user’s manual, quick installation guide, a Zotac case badge, two peripheral-to-6-pin power adapters, a VGA-to-DVI adapter, and a driver / utility disc that includes copies of vReveal, Nero Vision Xtra, CoolIris, XBMC, and Kylo. Although not pictured here, we’re told that Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core Limited Edition cards sold in the U.S. will also include a coupon code for a copy of Battlefield 3. Now that’s one heck of a game to bundle.